Anti-depressants have been credited with saving hundreds of lives each year in Sweden as a new study shows the suicide rate has declined significantly.
The report findings, revealed in The Local, show that 1,783 Swedes committed suicide in 1995 compared to 1,451 when measured a decade later. During this period the rate of use of anti-depressants among the adult population increased dramatically.
“This should be taken into consideration in the development of national guidelines for the treatment of depression,” according to Goran Isacsson from Karolinska University Hospital’s research team which commissioned the report for the Swedish medical journal Lakartidningen.
There is widespread belief, particularly amongst Swedes, that their country has one of the highest European suicide rates. The misconception dates back to a speech by former US President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950’s which made the assertion based on an inaccurate intelligence briefing.
However, statistics from the World Health Organisation show that in fact Lithuania holds the highest suicide rate in Europe; 75.6/100,000 in males and 16.1/100,000 for females. In Sweden the rates are 19.7/100,000 for males and 8.0/100,000 among women. Germany, France and even Australia and New Zealand all have higher suicide levels.
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has stated that it wants to pursue the path of conversational therapy in the first instance for depression sufferers, arguing that the use of prescribed medicines is unnecessary as conversational treatment achieves similar results.
The high suicide rate in Lithuania is notoriously partly due to Lithuanians’ choice of suicide method: around 90% choose hanging, which is a highly lethal.
YES, THEY DON´T DIE, BUT THEY LIVE LIKE ZOMBIES, TOTALLY MEDICATED…
What Sweden really needs is to clear out at least half of the immigrants and all of the asylum seekers, leave the EU and change Sweden back to the beutiful country it was,
to watch your county go down the drain makes you angry or depressed, depending on what you are made of, the Swedes are probably to soft to claim there country back, so they eat pills and think about suicide when they should be making molotow coctails like the immigrants.
The figures surprise me because I always thougt that Hungary had the highest suicide rate in Europe (even the world) , followed by Finland.
Finnish writer Paasilinna wrote a very entertaining book about Finland and suicide: a charming mass suicide (recommended).
Axel: totally correct!
uh oh, I have to agree with our Sir Euro this time….